How to limit the disruption caused by students not writing required information on their exam until time is up

Question

When proctoring exams, I am regularly faced with the issue of students not writing their name and/or additional required information on their exam until time is up and I am collecting the exams. This happens despite reminders at the start of the exam, 10 minutes before time as well as on the exam sheets themselves.

I have several concerns about this:

• Even if I have no problem believing this is the result of stress and an honest mistake, I find that the way I currently handle the situation can create opportunities for less honest student to exploit or lead to other honest students feeling slighted/complaining. This is because the process of collecting copies turns into a ten minute mess where I am forced to focus on individual students rather than the whole room, while students who already have turned in are tempted to talk, pack their things and start leaving if collecting takes too long and/or appears disorganized to them.
• There is realistically no way for me to check that students are only filling in their name and nothing else. I do not want to have discussions about why student A is writing while I am chiding student B for the same thing, or whether student C in the back of the room is still working or just inscribing his name.
• From a classroom management point of view, it is difficult to enforce any time limit when multiple students are continuing to write after time has been called, and to ensure students stay seated in silence if collecting copies takes too long and appears disorganized.

I do not have control on the format of the exam itself, nor on the grading, so this question is not relevant. That said I am open to suggestions on how to prevent this occurring as a simple invigilator. I would like to focus on how to prevent such an occurrence from disrupting the process of collecting the exams.

Unless the situation requires otherwise, the process goes as follows. At the end of the exam, I ask students to stop writing and remain silent while I go through them with a cardboard box to collect all copies. This is quick and painless as long as all students are ready to hand in when I pass by. However, when students have to write their name as I arrive (on every sheet of paper, so this takes non-negligible time), this is very disruptive and quickly makes the whole collecting process a mess.

• I can stop at the offending student and wait for him to write his name everywhere before resuming my walk through the room. This can be too slow because exams can be more than 10 pages long and this deals with offending students sequentially, so the added hassle is also proportional to the number of offending students (annoyingly they most often will only start dealing with the issue once I am at their desk). This is an issue because in my experience, I can keep control of the exam room (limited talking, writing and general chaos) for five or so minutes before things really devolve. Realistically, if some students do not respect the no talking/no writing rules in this five minute period, it should not affect the exam outcome too much, but if the collecting process takes ten-fifteen minutes and I am forced to focus on individual students rather than the whole room, I can see issues arising and/or students complaining of unfairness.
• I can rip the exam out of the offending student's hands and shove it in the box, but I think this is too harsh a punishment, and that would not fly with the course head anyway.
• (What I typically do) Give a stern reminder to the student and continue on through the room, navigating back to the student some moments later to collect their exam. This has the advantage of not completely halting the process for a single student, but makes this process more complex for me as I have to remember who still has an exam. In my experience this is still the best solution but it is really a tightrope walk as 3-4 offending students can quickly transform the process of collecting exams into a cat-and-mouse game. Also, it is then not obviously clear to the other students why some students are not immediately handing out and are even seemingly allowed to continue writing while they have to hand in. It feels like this method is also the most prone to "losing the room" because it gives the impression to other students that handing out is "flexible". I have had this method lead to students ostensibly write answers as I am standing in front of them waiting for them to hand in.
• One other method I thought of, but which would only be applicable to exams with a limited amount of students is to carry two boxes, one where most students would put their exam in, and the other for exams of students who are "not ready" to hand in for one reason or the other. Then once all copies are collected, offending students are invited to my desk to sort their issues out (i.e. write their name on the sheets in this case). However I don't know how acceptable this is, and I would not want to deal with several students claiming the same answer sheet.

For context, I give exams to first- to fifth-year students and (surprisingly to me at least in the beginning) this happens in all classes. I proctor exams alone for up to 100 students at a time, and I typically expect two to five such offending students for one exam.

This is not an ideal situation to be put in the first place, and ideally the exam should be designed in a way that would avoid it. However, the current state of practice seems to allow this to happen to proctors in several higher education systems. The question is thus more focused on "people skills" to employ in that situation so as to limit the resulting disruption and limit the opportunities for cheating and/or legitimate complaints from students.

Answer 1

Even despite repeated reminders, exams can be a tense time. Some students may honestly forget, and it would be overly harsh to deny them their exam for this. OTOH, some students may do this deliberately as a way to game the system for a little more time, and that should be discouraged.

I'm not sure you have the authority to completely address this on your own, but perhaps you can document it in a way that helps distinguish exam nerves from gaming and nudges students towards following the rules. Something like this maybe:

Take two boxes, visibly distinct. Students who finish on time put their papers in Box A and leave. Students who don't finish on time put their papers in Box B (ETA clarification: after they have added their details, don't want to lose identification of papers), and are required to fill in an extra form that gives their name and explains why they didn't fill in their details ahead of time. (Give them this form at the point where you collect their exam, so you're not giving them an opportunity for even more writing time!)

You then have a record of who is doing this, and if you're invigilating the same students repeatedly (or if you can persuade other invigilators to do the same) you can distinguish between one-offs and those who make a habit of it. You then have ammunition to go to your course head/etc. and say "this is a problem, we need to address it". (Or not, if it turns out you don't have repeat offenders.)

From their side, the fact of being singled out and knowing that it's being recorded gives a bit of a behavioural nudge. It tells them this behaviour isn't within the accepted norms, it gives them the impression there might be consequences if it persists, and it also shows other students that this might not be a great idea to copy.

Answer 2

In a similar situation, I have held time at the beginning of the exam to fill out the needed information. Once everyone is there, tell them to start writing their names on the test. You can see them all paging through the test quickly. Have them close their test and put their pencils down when they're done, and let everyone start the test when everyone's done.

I haven't done this with 100s of students, but it can be fairly obvious when someone is actually working not just writing their name (e.g. poking at a calculator).

You can also hand out only an answer sheet, and hold time for everyone to fill it out, then pass out the tests. (This is in the linked question.) This also is handy for reducing number of pages printed, especially if color costs more, sometimes.

Finally, tell them why you need it on every page. If it will slow you down grading (and getting them back to students), tell them! As Geoffrey's answer points out, they're not being malicious, probably just forgetting.

Answer 3

At the end of the exam time, tell everyone "pencils down".

Once everyone is still with pencils down, announce "You have 1 minute to write your name (and other information) on each and every page of your exam. If your name and class isn't on your exam at the end of this minute, your exam will still be collected without your name on it, and you will not be graded. This is your last chance. Start now."

Then wait 1 minute. They state "pencils down" again.

Now collect. Anyone who doesn't have their name and class written literally had a minute to do nothing but that, with consequences spelled out, and time dedicated to only this task.

That 1 minute should save you more than a minute. It is plausible that someone might spend that one minute doing a tiny change to an answer they worked out in the gap, but it isn't going to have much impact.

This is different than warning them 10 minutes before the end, because at 10 minutes before the end they still nominally can do work, and are focused on the exam (and possibly barely hearing you).

The goal is to parallelize the "fix" period, instead of making it sequential, and giving students who have forgotten to do it a sanctioned period to do it in.

A student who realized their mistake at "pencils down" might not feel comfortable opening the exam to write their name without your explicit permission, as that is viewed as cheating. So rather than giving permission individually, you give it to everyone at once.

(Feel free to modify the "1 minute" based on your experience of how long it takes to actually write your information on each page.)

Answer 4

At my university, we are so fed-up with this attitude that we are working on a system of stickers with a unique-use student identification number that each student would paste on her or his exam sheet at the time the proctors check for identification, signing a double of that sticker as a proof of taking part in the exam. This would furthermore ensure complete anonymity for the students. At the finish time, there would thus be not emotional blackmail of that kind.

Answer 5

I am surprised that no one has suggested the frame challenge in the already existing 12 answers, so I will do it:

Do not force the students to write their name on every sheet

Students are in time pressure during exams, and having them waste several minutes of exam time doing a task that does not count for exam completion adds stress to the situation. Additionally, it is unfair to students with long names. This might sound like a joke, but the difference between writing an 8-letter name 10 times, or a 30-letter name 10 times is considerable, and the psychological effect of being still stuck writing your name again and again while everyone else is already working on the exam questions is even worse.

There are other ways to ensure that the individual exam sheets are assigned to the correct students, such as keeping them stapled. If the sheets need to be separated for correction, having each exam stack have an individual ID printed on all sheets (optimal, but probably time-consuming for the instructor), or having the students write a shorter identifier on every sheet (student ID, or even seat number) also works.

The vast majority of exams that I have done in my life (and all the exams that I have organized as an instructor) did not require students to write the name on every sheet. Minimizing the amount of "administrative work" that students have to do during exam time will also minimize your problem of students wanting to do the administrative work outside exam time.

Answer 6

As you collect the exams, if you encounter a student who forgot to write their name, tell them to wait and not write anything on their paper until you've collected the other exams. Once you've collected all the other exams, most of the students can leave, and the remaining students can fill in their names as you watch. This way,

• you avoid appearing like you're giving some students extra time,
• you're not making the other students wait, and
• you're providing students an incentive to fill out names beforehand (if they don't, they have to stay longer).

Answer 7

What I usually do (the usefulness depends on the room layout and the number of students) is to tell the students to give the exam to the right so that the rightmost student has all the exams. Then the rightmost students should come forward and give me the exams. This makes the collecting process rather quick amd in my experience, people have "too many exams" in their hands to look at some answers, find their exam and alter their answers. It would be (in my classroom layout) be visible for me if someone woould in this phase look at some exam and copy answers.

If there is a student who is still writing, it will be visible as the students in their row will (most of the time) look nervously at them. I can look at them and say something or go to them and look what they are writing (more answers or just their name).

Answer 8

Here is the solution I am considering for the next sitting. In my university students are required to put their student ID on the table and we go through the room cross-checking them with the attendance list, so I can be quite certain the student ID will be within reach as I am collecting exams. I am thinking of carrying two boxes, one for most students to put their exams in, the other for "problematic" exams. If a student is not ready to turn in when I am there, just grab their exam along with their student ID, put them in the "problematic" box and invite the student to come sort things out when all exams are turned in (edit: meaning at most five-ten minutes later, and in the exam room itself).

With some care I think no confusion between unnamed copies should be possible (because they are intertwined with the student cards), and I should be able to go through everyone nearly uninterrupted. That being said I wonder if students could make receivable complaints about this approach.

Answer 9

Have the students stand up when the exam is over. Have them walk forward row by row and put the exams in the box.

A trick one of my professors used was to have students stand up when the time is over. This lets all the students check their name/student id was on each page but would make it difficult to add very many words to an answer. If a student truly forgets they can quickly add their name during this time, or spend a few seconds writing using your desk if need be.

Answer 10

I had a class with a similar issue when I was in school. The professor addressed it my semester by putting it on the syllabus that when time was called you must put down your pencil, and that pages of the exam without your name on them would not be graded. Anyone continuing to write would be failed on the exam. Every student was required to sign and return the syllabus acknowledging they'd read and understood the policy, and given a reasonable amount of time (a full week) to do so and turn it in.

Before every exam the professor and/or proctor would get the entire room's attention and remind us that before we solve any problems we should go through the exam and put our name on each page, and pages without names would not be graded.

With such an absurd amount of warning it became hard to argue anyone forgetting to do this was not in the wrong. In school, as in life, there are times where you are repeatedly warned to do something requiring trivial effort or face consequences and at some point you need to be responsible for your actions.

Answer 11

If it's really only 2-5 students in a room of 100, there's no need to alter the process for the majority of students.

When the allotted time for the exam is up, walk around with the box and collect the papers as usual. If any student says that they need more time "just to put their name on all the papers", collect their papers into a numbered envelope and give the student a card with a matching number.

After collecting all the exam papers, dismiss the class and invite the offenders to your desk to fix their papers as you watch. Keep a list of names and ask your professor if there are appropriate repercussions for repeat offenders.

Answer 12

Setup the test the same as printed standardized testing in secondary school.

Create a cover page that has spaces for students to fill in their personal details on the front. In the corner, place a large stop sign that "DO NOT CONTINUE UNTIL DIRECTED". If you don't have control over the design of the test, print this on A3 paper, folded over the exam forming a book.

Warn students: (1) they must fill out the information before starting the test and (2) they cannot open the test packet until the time indicated. Take away exams from anyone who opens the packet before you start the test, they receive a 0. Physically shred a blank copy of the exam in front of them, so it is made clear what will happen.

Answer 13

If entirely avoiding the situation is not practically doable in the short term, one approach to limit the impact on the management of the whole class is to separate the collection of most exams from the handling of offending students.

Several practical implementations of this have been proposed, with the basic idea of identifying problematic copies and/or students without interrupting the collection process, before inviting those offending students to come sort out their issues with the proctor.

If the class is sufficiently small and the proctor is confident that students will respect their injunction to stop writing, the proctor can simply not collect problematic copies and handle those separately once class is dismissed, as suggested in JoshuaTS's answer:

As you collect the exams, if you encounter a student who forgot to write their name, tell them to wait and not write anything on their paper until you've collected the other exams. Once you've collected all the other exams, most of the students can leave, and the remaining students can fill in their names as you watch.

If students are required to have some form of ID on their desk and the proctor is confident that it will be easy (and allowed!) to reach for, even for offending students, another possibility is to collect problematic copies along with the corresponding student ID in a separate box, before inviting those students to come fix their copies with the proctor, as suggested in nathdwek's answer. The goal of grabbing the student's ID is to match the exam to the student as quickly as possible so that problematic copies do not get mixed together in the box, and not to keep the student's ID for longer than it takes to fix whatever is wrong with their copy.

In my university students are required to put their student ID on the table and we go through the room cross-checking them with the attendance list, so I can be quite certain the student ID will be within reach as I am collecting exams. I am thinking of carrying two boxes, one for most students to put their exams in, the other for "problematic" exams. If a student is not ready to turn in when I am there, just grab their exam along with their student ID, put them in the "problematic" box and invite the student to come sort things out when all exams are turned in (edit: meaning at most five-ten minutes later, and in the exam room itself).

With some care I think no confusion between unnamed copies should be possible (because they are intertwined with the student cards), and I should be able to go through everyone nearly uninterrupted. That being said I wonder if students could make receivable complaints about this approach.

If those solutions are not satisfactory, a third way to do this is to carry extra envelopes to put the problematic copies in with matching tags to give to offending students. Again, once other copies are collected, those students are invited to come sort out their issues with the proctor, as suggested in arp's answer:

When the allotted time for the exam is up, walk around with the box and collect the papers as usual. If any student says that they need more time "just to put their name on all the papers", collect their papers into a numbered envelope and give the student a card with a matching number.

After collecting all the exam papers, dismiss the class and invite the offenders to your desk to fix their papers as you watch.

This last implementation takes a bit more preparation but should be universally applicable.

This basic approach also allows to log those occurrences and interact with the offending students.

If the proctor deems productive, they can discuss whether instructions were clear enough or try to convince students that this situation should be avoided in the future for their own sake. Logging occurrences in front of the students or requiring them to provide a written explanation may have enough of an impact in this stressful situation to motivate honest students to improve their behavior in the future, as Geoffrey Brent puts it:

Take two boxes, visibly distinct. Students who finish on time put their papers in Box A and leave. Students who don't finish on time put their papers in Box B (ETA clarification: after they have added their details, don't want to lose identification of papers), and are required to fill in an extra form that gives their name and explains why they didn't fill in their details ahead of time. (Give them this form at the point where you collect their exam, so you're not giving them an opportunity for even more writing time!)

[...]

From their side, the fact of being singled out and knowing that it's being recorded gives a bit of a behavioural nudge. It tells them this behaviour isn't within the accepted norms, it gives them the impression there might be consequences if it persists, and it also shows other students that this might not be a great idea to copy.

More importantly, logging those occurrences provides concrete evidence to support proposals to adapt the exam organization if necessary. It can also be used to identify repeat offenders, as both arp and Geoffrey Brent respectively propose:

After collecting all the exam papers, dismiss the class and invite the offenders to your desk to fix their papers as you watch. Keep a list of names and ask your professor if there are appropriate repercussions for repeat offenders.

You then have a record of who is doing this, and if you're invigilating the same students repeatedly (or if you can persuade other invigilators to do the same) you can distinguish between one-offs and those who make a habit of it. You then have ammunition to go to your course head/etc. and say "this is a problem, we need to address it". (Or not, if it turns out you don't have repeat offenders.)

Answer 14

Excellent solution implemented by a professor I had during the Bachelor: he printed the lines for name/ID/etc on the BACK of the exam.

The exam was then distributed and had to be kept face-down (with plenty of time to fill ot the student info on the back) until he gave the "start".

When the time was over he gave the "stop" and all the paper MUST be flipped IMMEDIATELY for his aidees to collect them.

Answer 15

I agree with Anonymous Physicist, exams should allow for plenty of time for all students who have studied the exam subject well enough to complete the exam well within the set time. The reason is that even good students who have mastered the subject 100% can sometimes start attacking a question in the wrong way and then have to start over. You want to eliminate these problems so that the exam result reflects better how well a student has mastered the subject.

Exams designed this way allow the proctor to be quite strict with the deadline. Most students will have handed in the exam paper in well before the deadline. The students who are left at the end are students who know that they were struggling with the subject and they can accept that time is up much easier than in case of a student who expects to do very well and is racing against time after e.g. making a false start.

The proctor can also walk past the students around half-time and see if the the required information has been filled in and ask the student to do so now if it hasn't already been done. This half-way intervention is much easier to do if the exam isn't a race against time. It's also advisable to announce at the start of the exam that there is more than enough time, that the required information should be filled in first, and that you'll be checking during the exam if this has been done.

Answer 16

It's best to discuss this with the whole team (teachers and proctors) and agree on a policy.

I think what is missing from your present policy is a clear announcement of consequences.

Before the exams are handed out, announce that exams, or pages, that do not meet the requirements for naming will be discarded (if that's the case). Mention the requirements (e.g. the student's name and ID must be on the top left of each page).

When the exams are about to be collected, once again announce that exams or pages that do not have (whatever the requirement is) will not be graded and ask the students to take some time to make sure that their name and ID is on the pages as required. Say you won't stop at their table but that they need to check it now. Then collect the exams and just take them in, don't stop.

A policy like this will only work when supported by the teachers and other proctors. Students need to know what to expect and need to know that there are real consequences for not meeting requirements. You cannot decide these consequences, so you cannot make a policy work on your own.